20000402

Plea for duty relief to

commercial importers

of polyester yarn

MUZAFFAR QURESHI

KARACHI: Textile associations have urged the finance minister to allow relief in custom duty on import of polyester yarn to commercial importers because 90 percent of the import of the item is made by them.

The chairmen of Pakistan Silk and Rayon Mills Association (PSRMA),

Pakistan Cloth Merchants Association (PCMA) and Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA), met Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday and apprised him of the discriminatory nature of the latest Notification (S.R.O. No 1(1)-CTR/2000) which has reduced the custom duty on the import of polyester yarn from 35 percent to 25 percent provided the same is imported by the manufacturers of polyester fabrics.

Gulzar Siddiq of PSRMA, Iqbal Mangrani of PCMA, and Ashraf Sattar of PYMA told the minister that the notification would create serious discrimination between the commercial importers and industrial users because the commercial importers actually help the manufacturers of polyester and synthetic cloth not only by sourcing the raw material at the most competitive rates but also save them from the hassles of imports so that they may concentrate on timely production with immaculate quality.

They pointed out that the commercial importers freed the manufacturers, who were not financially very strong, from financial worries as synthetic cloth manufacturing to a sizeable extent is done by small and medium enterprises having meagre resources.

Textile leaders maintained that some commercial importers acted as exclusive agents of the suppliers and most of them had information about most economical sources of supply.

The textile association leaders requested the minister to direct the CBR to make necessary amendment in the said SRO to provide fiscal relief not only to the polyester fabric manufacturers but also to all synthetic fabric manufacturers and importers as well.